Camp Harmony News-Letter

Vol. 1 No. 9 -- Puyallup, Wash. -- July 10, 1942

Page 1

STUDENTS STILL AWAIT RELOCATION

As actual prospects of relocation loomed brighter to more than 300 university and college students, Robert O'Brien, Northwest Student Relocation Council chairman, revealed this week that many applications have been forwarded to the War Relocation Authority in San Francisco for consideration.

Students who have acceptances from the school to which they applied, funds sufficient for at least one year and acceptance from the community to which they intend going will probably be given first consideration, according to O'Brien.

Students met last week to fill out application forms and were informed that they would have to meet the three requirements before their application could be considered by the authorities in San Francisco.

Those students without acceptances or bank statements attesting to their financial status were instructed to write immediately for the required papers.

It was expected that a few students whose applications have already been approved by W.R.A. officials will be relocated during the coming two weeks.

CAMP RESIDENTS TO RECEIVE GOVT. PROVIDED CLOTHING SOON

Arrangements are now being made for distributing government-provided clothing to center residents with individual allowances to range from $2.15 to $4.61 per month and cumulative since date of arrival in camp, the WCCA office announced today.

Prior consideration is to be given members of the garbage and kitchen crews, followed by individuals assigned to other work crews. All applications will be taken up at offices to be established in each area.

The monthly allowance scale per person, as announced by the WCCA, is as follows:

Adult, male ............ $3.82
Male, 6-18 years .......  2.15
Children, 1-5 years ....  2.60
Adult, female ..........  4.61
Infant, less than 1 yr .  2.25

Since allowances are effective as of date of arrival, persons who came to the center, for instance, on May 15, and who are entitled to $4.82 per month, would have an allowance of one-half of $3.82 for the month of May in addition to the full amount of $3.82 for June, WCCA officials explained.

The announcement did not reveal, however, the dates when application for clothing would by received by officials concerned.

This Week's Angel

For bringing into camp eight reels of make believe and a bit of the world without -- for treating all of us, in other words, to a full length flicker out of Hollywood -- this week's lollipop goes, undisputed, to Mr. John Motoda of Area C.

That center residents might reclaim the pleasure of "going to a movie" and avail themselves of a pre-evacuation entertainment staple, Mr. Motoda dug deep and generously and came up with the wherewithal for "Icecapades" and two sound projectors of the latest model.

Need we remind you fellow beneficiaries that tailor-made Hollywood films and the paraphernalia that projects them onto a screen are not bought with beans or canteen coupons?

SAGA OF 'CHICO': HE'D RATHER BE TORPEDOED!

Billeted at D-2-94 and trying hard to overcome the difficulties of navigating on terra firma is Kaoru Abe, formerly of Honolulu and the high seas, and now the only citizen of Camp Harmony who can say with a straight face that he didn't know where he was headed when he started out.

Early in April, 20-year-ol Abe, who has been a merchant seaman since 1940, signed on with the oil tanker S.S. "Sinclair Rubilene" at Houston, Texas, just as he had signed on with dozens of other freighters and tankers in his seafaring past. And if military orders forbidding revelation of the tanker's destination had not been in effect on that April day, Abe would still be serving Uncle Sam on the U-boat-infested waters of the Atlantic and the Caribbean.

As things turned out, Abe's ship sailed from Houston and the Gulf to Honolulu and, on the way
(Cont'd. on pg. 2)

Page 2

PAIR DEPART FOR TEACHING JOB AT COLO.

To aid the nation's war effort as Japanese language instructors, Nobutaka Ike, C-2-75, and Hiromichi Hoshino, of Area A, left last Sunday for Boulder, Colorado, where they will join the teaching staff of the University of Colorado's Japanese language school.

Ike, 26, was a Japanese language instructor at the University of Washington's Far Eastern department prior to evacuation. Hoshino, also 26, had, at one time, taught school in Japan.

Their addition to the teaching staff raise to more than 30 the number of Japanese instructors retained at Colorado.

Earlier in the week, Lillian Horiuchi, of Area C, received a permit to travel to Worland, Wyoming, to join her fiance, Jack Dunn Ishii.

Both Ike and Miss Horiuchi were members of the headquarters information staff.

OKITSU PRIDE OF 'C' CARVERS
HAS MADE HOBBY INTO ART

The thermometer may rise to 110 degrees, and the rains may beat down in furious assault, but there is one man who never complains. He sits whittling on a slab of rough thick bark -- a picture of quiet contentment.

Frank Tokujiro Okitsu of C-2-77 is a grandfather of 54 years, an unpretentious little man who works with a simple pocket-knife and other tools fashioned of ten-penny nails, tempered and sharpened in the heat of his little wood stove.

In his time, he has carved tiny Indian curios and souvenirs from ivory and fashioned cuff links and other knick-knacks out of gold nuggets for a jewelry shop in Skagway, Alaska, and has sketched charcoal portraits while working in a Seattle restaurant.

Once, when the snow drifted high in the winter of pre-World War I days, he and his elder brother moulded life-sized figures of polar bears, pelicans, penguins, etc., in front of their Seattle home. The next morning they found their snow figures splashed all over the Seattle papers, with little Mary Jane Okitsu perched atop a polar bear. The two brothers also contributed to many a community affair by designing costumes, shibai sceneries, curtains, and so forth.

For a while, when Frank Okitsu turned from urban lift to the soil on a Renton farm and sought satisfaction in spreading fields of mottled greens, his artistic talents lay dormant. But today, the carefully tended acres of lettuce and peas and berries are no longer his immediate environs. His hands are freed; his mind is unencumbered of agrarian cares. And so he sits in Area C, whittling, the latent talents of yester-year rushing forth again into his toil-worn hands.

By Tadako Tamura

MEET 'CHICO' ABE, SEAMAN

(cont'd. from pg. 1)
back, docked at San Diego and Seattle. Through no fault of his own, he found himself on the Pacific Coast, and on June 27th he was taken off the ship at Todd's drydock in Seattle and brought to Camp Harmony.

Abe realizes that the authorities acted in full compliance with the army order banning all Japanese from the Pacific Coast. He does, however, want the Army to recognize the fact that his presence on the coast was not willful and that he was risking his life together with the rest of the tanker's crew in transporting a vitally essential war commodity through dangerous waters.

He wants to rejoin his mates and the merchant marine. And so he's asked his union headquarters at New York (the National Maritime Union, CIO) to take up his case with the Army. If the Army should hand down a favorable decision, it's back to a sailor's life for Abe.

In the meantime, while he's undergoing the pain of acquiring his land legs, Abe wants the folks in Area D to call him "Chico." That's his name to his seagoing pals from Honolulu to Rio.

AREA DISPATCHES

Area B
Ruling over the Fourth of July festivities here were King, Henry Kiga; Queen, Mary Jane Kinoshita; Prince, Shig Takeuchi; and Princess, Frances Ota ..... winners in the Kiddie's parade were Reiko Takayoshi, Jerry Beppu, Ann Yoshida, and Denny Takayoshi, Mamoru Sakamoto and Carl Ota. Miss Mieki Teraoka announced her engagement to Hideo Mori recently.

Area C
C's first "honeymoon cottage" with all the trimmings is occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Yutaka Kitayama. Mrs. Kitayama is the former Misao Fujino of Area B ..... along recreational lines, the first feature movie, "The Cowboy and the Lady" was shown recently ..... a group of 23 girl scouts are meeting under Kiyo Uyeda and Michiko Tanabe ..... the Dick Tracy serial shown in Mess hall #1 had the area's youngsters oh-ohing expectantly ..... a weekly showing of feature movies is planned.

VITAL STATISTICS

BIRTHS
Mr. & Mrs. Hiromu Iwakiri
June 24, boy, Area D.

Mr. & Mrs. Noburu Nakagawa
June 27, girl, Area C.

Mr. & Mrs. Kenji Kawaguchi
July 6, girl, Area D

Mr. & Mrs. Masaru Nitta
July 1, girl, Area D

Mr. & Mrs. Katsumi Isomura
July 6, boy, Area D.

DEATHS
Egusa, Frank (Sam), Area A
Age: 27
Died at Pierce County hospital, July 2, 1942.

Kobuki, Kotaro, Area A
Age: 68
Died of stroke in Area A on June 28, 1942.

Page 3

OUR PAPER FAMINE

We're apologizing again, and following up fast with the same old alibi. The alibi is tattered, mouldy, almost putrescent from repeated use, but it still stands defiantly true.

We had high hopes of shooting the patriotic works and knocking another wheel off the Axis war-machine with a special 4th of July edition. We visualized and we labored, but we could not conceive. Hopes, we learned again, are not enough.

Frankly, we are not in the least hesitant about drawing the center's attention to our dilemma and, we might add, our despair. The NEWS LETTER is the ONLY newspaper among some ten center sheets which has never been able to come out on schedule.

Tanforan's TOTALIZER, Santa Anita's PACEMAKER, Pinedale's LOGGER, Tulare's NEWS, Manzanar's FREE PRESS, Portland's EVACUAZETTE -- all, whether they be weeklies or bi-weeklies, are able to supply their centers regularly with from six to eight pages of news. We limp along, not on schedule but whenever we can, on four skimpy pages.

The staff is at present collecting pennies for a telegram to Donald Nelson of the War Production Board. Mr. Nelson will be asked if there is some spare mimeograph paper somewhere in the land which can be allocated for Camp Harmony and its paper-starved NEWS LETTER.

ART SHOW SLATED FOR 'A'

Intrepid artists last week pooled their joint efforts and, under the auspices of the headquarters art department, displayed their varied and conglomerate talent at an art exhibit in Area D in the first of a series of such showings.

Thirty entrants submitted 103 water color and oil paintings, charcoal, pen and pencil drawings to the display which attracted a large gallery during the two days of its showing in a makeshift salon adjacent to the Area D library.

All was not a strict adherence to "art" in reference to paintings inasmuch as woodcarving and its allied arts wre represented.

More than half of the pictures entered depicted life in the camp. Sketches ranged from simple line drawings to a water color rendition, bordering on the surrealistic, of an Area latrine.

Portraits, show-cards, even Japanese "kakemono" were among the various entries. A part of the exhibit was devoted to the art department's war bond posters -- huge display signs which were painted by the art and sign staffs and used as a featured part of Puyallup's recent Fourth of July parade. The exhibits in other areas were completed yesterday by art staff with Area A scheduled to hold the display today and Saturday in the area visiting room.

THE FINISHING LINE

ARTFUL DISCORD
We will gladly give our formula for dandelion wine to the talented rowdies of the Art Department if they will give or throw away their harmonica and guitar. The boys may have good reasons for celebrating after their prodigious labors on the 4th of July posters, but we wish they would remember they are only two doors down from the peaceful NEWS-LETTER office. Webster's definitions for discord, bedlam and caterwauling are totally inadequate when Keith Oka's paint and brush gang cuts loose with "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain."

FOR PEEP'S SAKE
We can't say it's our sense of decorum, but the center's cuties should be warned that every wall in camp will soon be full of man-made knot holes. The village gallants are still busy with their knives, but not just to carve out the names of their prize fillies. That's passe. The male hobby of the week is making rings out of knots. So if you hear a banging on your walls, remember it ain't the carpenter. And run for cover accordingly.

HDQTRS. HEROES
The next time you want to call the Headquarters Staff a bunch of buckpassers or worse, think twice. Area D's mammoth kitchen was caught flat with a labor shortage -- right smack in the middle of last week's heat wave. George Taki's Operations Department sent out frantic calls for temporary pot washers, and the first volunteers were members of the camp's top administrative staff. They who gave up their cool confines in Headquarters and stripped themselves to the waist to scrub the big pots for five torrid days were Bill and Rube Hosokawa, Yoshi Takayoshi, George Minato, Tom Iseri, Dick Naito, Dick Setsuda, Tom Kanao, Chick Uno and Michio Shinoda (Jimmie Sakamoto's Man Friday.)

Extra lollipops to the headquarters heroes.

The Camp Harmony
NEWS-LETTER

EDITOR	...................	Dick Takeuchi
Managing Editor ...........	Dyke Miyagawa
Ass't Managing Editor .....	Taka Oka
Sports Editor .............	Kenji Tani
Copy Editor ...............	Makiko Takahashi
Art Editor ................	Keith Oka
Reporters .................	Ruth Yoshimoto, Gertrude Takayama,
				Mitsuko Yagi, Hanako Okamoto.
Business Manager ..........	George Minato

Page 4

CAMP HARMONY SPORTS

GIANT SUMO 'TAIKAI' THIS SUN.

Giving the Area D sumo fans a real treat, a giant "taikai" will be held there Sunday.

More than 150 sumo artists are entered in this colorful sports tourney which will be staged all day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Areas B and C are entertaining 30 participants apiece while A and D will be represented by teams of 50 strong.

Fielding just about the toughest team in the tournament will be the highly touted D lineup. Included on its roster are such sumo luminaries as Saddle Baba, Tom Hirai, Mits Yano, Koichi Kasai and George Iwakiri. Out at the present with an infected toe is Shiro Kashino.

"A," which is expected to give D a battle royal, is spearheaded by Mits Mizuki, "Beefo" Amabe, S. Imoto and "Junks" Kurose. Of "dark horse" strength are the B and C teams which may come through with stunning upsets.

"B" MESS AIDS APPEAR IN "A"

Area A had its weekly taste of inter-area softball plays when four squads from Area B made its appearance Friday evening.

Invading teams were the girls' all-stars, the dishwashers, cooks and the timekeepers.

Meanwhile in A Saturday, an old-timers team of men over 40 were to play the class "C" all-star aggregation.

'C' VOLLEYBALLERS BEATEN

Area B's volleyball brigade scored an outstanding win this week when they routed the invading forces from Area C five matches out of six.

In the girls' play B's "Weak Spots" team was the only squad to drop a decision losing 17-21. The other B girls' teams, "Henpeckers" and "Lucky Strikes" racked up 21-17 and 21-10 wins respectively.

C boys volleyballers were no match for the B teams as they dropped all three of the decision, the scores being 21-6, 21-5 and 21-2.

Meanwhile, the popularity of volleyball continues to grow with all areas greatly stepping up their volleyball activities by forming leagues, etc.

VOLLEYBALL TO BE EMPHASIZED

To lay more emphasis on volleyball, a reorganization of the sports picture in D will be effected next week, Area Athletic Director Saki Arai announced today.

Up to now softball has been stressed but under the new setup, volleyball will take the place of softball several days per week, Arai said.

Arai also announced that softball circuits will be juggled so that teams of equal strength will be able to participate against each other. Thus, lopsided games will be lessened.

As to basketball, Arai said a select committee was working out definite team ratings.

GOLF COURSE OPENS IN "A"

Much to the delight of devout divot-diggers, a miniature golf course elaborately lettered "The Haba-Haba Country Golf Club" made its auspicious debut in Area A this week.

Such Jefferson Park "par-busters" as Sparky Kono, Johnson Shimizu, Shang Kashiwagi and Mits Kashiwagi tried out the tricky nine-hole layout and found it very "interesting."

Though par is 27, many embryonic golfers are racking up scores that dip deep into the forties and fifties.

Nevertheless they are going at it in a business-like manner from morning til night not giving up til that magic 27 is theirs to show off to surprised friends.

J. KAWAGUCHI TOPS BATTERS

Drumming the horsehide at a merry .454 clip, sturdy Johnny Kawaguchi of Section 2 paces the Area A Class "A" batters this week as the first round neared its end.

Close behind are Shin Tosaya of Section 5 with .417 while George Yano of Section 4 and S. Fujii of Section 6 are knotted at .400.

Meanwhile sections 1 and 2 slipped into a tie for the "A" leadership when the early pace-driver, Section 5 lost two straight decisions recently.

In the "B" circuit, section 6 continued to sparkle with 5 straight victories with sections 4 and 1 running second and third. Section 6 also leads the "C" loop with five wins against 3 losses.

Close behind Section 6 in the "C" loop are Sections 3/4 and 1, both in the .500 column.